Bush's SS Plan: Divide and Conquer

Step 1: Create two classes of recipients. The first being the poor whose benefits won't change much. The second being everyone else whose benefits will be drastically cut. End result: Social Security becomes Social Welfare.

Step 2: Use class warfare to turn those whose benefits are cut against those whose benefits remain the same (Bush's version of welfare queens).

Step 3: Eliminate the program entirely because it violates the "American ideal of everyone getting the same deal".

A few months back Bush tried this same approach, except that then he tried to pit the young vs. the old by endorsing the idea of maintaining benefits for older citizens. This backfired tremendously as grandparents rebelled against the idea of slashing benefits for the grandchildren.

Well, if generational warfare won't work, there's always the old "eat the poor" route.

Shameless

Courtesy Josh Marshal:

There was so much bamboozling going on tonight in that press conference that it was easy to miss one essential contradiction in the president's argument. You don't have to worry about private accounts, he said, because if you want you can fill your account with US Treasury bonds which have no risk at all. They're backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. But he says that the very same Treasury notes, when they're in the Trust Fund, are just worthless IOUs.

The Awful Truth

I'd like to second Moe Blues recommendation of Billmon's ruminations on the Straussians.

When Newt Gingrich equated feminism with the destruction of Western civ, he was echoing (in his dumbed-down way) Strauss�s lurking fear that the liberal American state would steer the same course as the Weimar Republic � a political Titanic on a collision course with a totalitarian iceberg. Deprived of the moral certainty provided by religion and tradition, the masses are vulnerable to crazed political adventurers who would fill the nihilistic void with their own crackpot ideas � like, say, the international conspiracy of Communists and Freemasons. They might even be worse than Tom DeLay. Or, as Drury laconically puts it:

Strauss . . . does not disagree with Marx that religion is the opium of the masses, he just thinks that people need their opium.

What gives Straussian thought its special flavor � a bitter blend of hypocrisy and cynicism � is the fact that Strauss himself didn�t believe in the eternal �truths� he championed. He was a nihilist, in other words � but one who believed only the philosophical elite could be trusted to indulge in such a dangerous vice. In exchange for this privilege, the elite has a special obligation to uphold the �noble lies� the ignorant masses must live by if society is to survive.

Trying to talk logically with neo-cons and their hangers on is an exercise in eternal frustration. Billmon puts his finger on the source of the problem: the neo-cons don't really believe what they publicly profess. They are as corrupted by nihilistic impulses as the culture they decry. Its just that they consider themselves to be more capable of dealing with "The Awful Truth" than the rest of us plebeians.

It's a perversion of the Platonic concept of philosopher kings. where Plato envisioned the kings as protectors of a "Grander Truth".

Liberals, progressives and even true conservatives are believers in that "Grander Truth". All of us believe that a better future for everyone can be achieved. We believe that there is hope in the world. We may have different ideas on how to achieve that better future, but we fundamentally agree that it is not a pointless endeavor..

The neo-cons are the enemies of all who believe in that better future. Not just because they subscribe to a nihilistic vision of human capabilities but because they believe they have to protect us from that vision by any means necessary, including adopting the facade of those who hope for a better future.

That this might all just be a gargantuan rationalization for their desire to be the ones in charge is surely not something they have considered. In fact, they think they are doing us a favor by taking on the "burden" of protecting us from "The Awful Truth". And they resent the fact that we don't appreciate them for it.

Predictions

Let me risk a lit prognostication here. I predict that:

1. Frist will call for a vote on the nuclear option.

2. The vote will fail.

Frist has put himself into a corner on the nuclear option. He knows Reid won't budge on using the filibuster to block Bush judicial nominees. But he also knows that the Republican base simply won't accept anything less than a full effort on his part to get them through, even if that means destroying 200 years of Senate tradition. He has to call for the vote if he is to have ANY chance at the nomination in 2008. If he yields on this point they will scream for his scalp.

But, if Frist had the votes, he would have called for it already. The longer he waits the more bad PR the Republicans suffer. Harry Reid knows this also (he held a conference call with bloggers earlier this week in which he apparently said as much).

Normally it would be bad form for a leader to call for a vote when they don't have the votes. No one wants to have a loss on their record and legislators prefer not to go on the record for a lost cause. But the only option left to Frist is to call for the vote even though he knows he will lose. That way he can at least tell his base that he didn't back down. And he can throw to the wolves the few Republicans that vote against it.

And this would be the best of all possible outcomes for the Democrats. A negotiated settlement that results in no vote would still be a victory, of sorts. But an on-the-record defeat would be even better, especially since the Democrats could then use the official votes against those who voted for it.

Elephants on parade

MoveOn PAC is running commercials on the nuclear option. Radical Rampage is perhaps the most eye-catching, as we get to watch wild-eyed elephants rampage through Washington D.C., crushing the White House and the Capital Dome in their path.

The final image (shown above) was a real kick in the pants!

Paranoia Strikes Deep

You want to know the full measure of fear that the Bush administration instills in people? Read this story about how the administration has blackballed Kerry supporters from an international conference on telecommunication standards:

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party. Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."

Now, the paranoia that pervades the administration is evident. I mean, these are bunch of telecommunication geeks getting together! Hardly the place where you are likely to see plans for a political coup.

But the real evidence of fear in this article is the fact that one of the blackballed individuals isn't even willing to go on the record about what is being done to him/her! Why? Could it be they fear even greater reprisals if they complain publicly?

Welcome to Bush's America!

(Kevin Drum and Atrios have more).

Bad if they do? Bad if they don't!

Will the Democrats, as David Broder suggests, come out on the wrong side if they follow through on Harry Reid's threats to stop Senate business if Frits invokes the nuclear option? Broder compares the current fight to the government shutdown in 1995 and says that Reid and the Democrats will be perceived as in the wrong like Newt Gingrich and the Republicans were back then. Will the Democrats pay a political price if they continue to obstruct Bush's judicial nominees?

Let's turn the question around: what kind of political price will the Democrats pay if they don't follow through on the threat? What kind of perception will they leave if they fold now and compromise on Bush's judges?

The answer is simple: they will simply confirm the public perception that Democrats are wimps who don't stand for anything.

I watched "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" last night with my family. Frank Capra's vision of America may seem hoky to some, but he understood what appeals to the public: people fighting for a cause, even a lost cause, on principle alone. Fights like the nuclear option, or the government shutdown of 1995, are won by those who most appear to be fighting for the principles of good government. Clinton stood in the path of a Republican effort to dismantle the social welfare state. Reid stands in the way of a Republican effort to dismantle procedures meant to protect us from the excesses of majority rule.

If the Democrats don't follow through in this current battle then it is the Republicans who will claim the mantle of fighting on principle. If the Democrats take Broder's advice, if they don't take the risk because of the politics, then they will be perceived as not taking the risk because of the politics.

Broder, as usual, is an idiot. It remains to be seen if the Democrats are idiotic enough to listen to an idiot.

More good commentary on this here, here and here.